Van Horn RV Park

Van Horn, TX

We have come to realize some newbie mistakes that we have made so far in our first 3 months on the road. For example, we have learned that some RV parks are best served as one night stops to break up your drive and are not really intended for longer stays, like a week. This stop in Van Horn, as well as our previous stop in Fort Stockton, should have been for just one night. Had we done that at both locations we could be in southern Arizona already where it is a bit warmer than the upper 20’s to low 30’s we’ve been experiencing for the past 3 days.

When Dan posted his usual site setup picture to Facebook, a friend from our summer in Holly commented that the park looked empty. We checked in around 1:00 PM and it was indeed quite empty. By 5:00 PM, it was probably over 1/2 full as people pulled in for the night. Sure enough, by 10 or 11 the next morning, the place was almost empty again. We watched this cycle repeat itself every day we were here. We could have gone to do something but the closest thing of interest are Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park, both are over 60 miles away. With Amy nursing a chest cold and the government on partial shutdown, we did not make the relatively long road trip to the parks. So a new rule of thumb would be that if an RV park is less than a mile off an interstate, it is likely catering to overnight guests and should not be considered for more than 1 or 2 nights. In our defense, we were going to stay in Balmorhea State Park but the campground in the park is closed for renovations. The next time we find ourselves traveling western Texas, we will try to stay at that state park and, if need be, stay only a single night in Van Horn or Fort Stockton.